The Geneva-based World Health Organization sounded its own ominous alarm, raising its alert level to one notch below a full-fledged global pandemic. Said WHO director general Margaret Chan: "It really is all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic."
Dr. Richard Besser, acting chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in Atlanta there were confirmed cases in 10 states, including 51 in New York, 16 in Texas, and 14 in California. The CDC counted scattered cases in Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Arizona, Indiana, Nevada, and Ohio.
State officials in Maine said laboratory tests had confirmed three cases in that state, not yet included in the CDC count.
And the Pentagon said a Marine at the Twentynine Palms base in California had been confirmed to be ill with swine flu and was isolated, along with his roommate. A Marine spokesman at the Pentagon, Major David Nevers, said the sick Marine was doing well and his condition continued to improve. Nevers said about 30 others who had been in contact with the sick Marine would be held apart for five days to see if they show symptoms.
In Mexico, where the flu is believed to have originated, officials said yesterday the disease was now suspected in 159 deaths, and nearly 2,500 illnesses.
Despite calls from many US lawmakers for tightening controls over the Mexico-US border, administration officials ruled out that option.
"Closing our nation's borders is not merited here," said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano at a mid-afternoon briefing. She said closing borders or US ports would have enormous adverse economic consequences and would have "no impact or very little" to help stop the spread of the virus.
In fact, customs agents have delayed 49 people at the border because of flulike symptoms, and 41 have been cleared so far. Test results on the other eight were not complete.
